Ponder
by Peter T. Duende
Summary: Leopold Fitz ponders on what he should have said and when he should have spoken. But now, really, it's too late. Jemma is gone. /Set in between the Season 2 finale, and the beginning of Season 3. A look at a knot of Fitz's thoughts from his sleep deprived brain set sometime during the beginning of the six months./


I ponder. As I sit at a random desk in the Lab, I ponder. As the fingers of my bad hand pick at the buttons on my shirt, and as their twin fingers on my good hand clench and unclench the arm of the chair I sit upon, I ponder.

It is 2:13 am. I don't remember the last time I closed my eyelids for more than five minutes. My thoughts run amuck. My thoughts run together. I ponder.

What do I ponder? My faintheartedness. My useless, broken mind. My hollow future. My inability to say three words that could have changed the course of my life for the better.

I ponder so much more. I ponder in form of, what some call messy, but what I call "organized chaos". My thoughts knot and tangle themselves up but their order, or lack thereof, makes perfect sense.

The trails of thought, at least the few I am able to finish before another captures me, each lead to the same answer: _You, Leopold Fitz, are a bloody fool_.

If I had just realized how I felt sooner, perhaps back at the Academy, Jemma might have realized similar feelings for me were deep inside of her. I might have been happier.

Maybe if I had only realized I loved her before the Chitauri virus nearly claimed her life things would be vastly different.

But no. It has taken me nearly eleven years to shed the scales off of my eyes and to see that Jemma is more than just a friend to me.

But our stories didn't join then either. Things didn't improve one jot once I realized it. No, they seemed to grow even worse. I was unable to spit out my feelings for her. So, so, so many times was I tempted to gather her up in my arms, to kiss her, to beg her to tell me if she might possibly be in the same agony I was. The agony that I still am in.

It seems like the ice-cold poker of death is one of the best prompters for secrets to come out. I've been in many near death experiences and yet only once have I been able to tell her that she's...she's...what? More than a friend. She had called me a friend, her best friend, just before I managed to shove aside my fear for a brief moment and slam my hand down on the button that opened the pod and ejected us into the dark, cold ocean water.

We survived. Neither of us were in one piece, me especially, but death lost its chilling grip on our souls (if souls exist) for a time. But then it was practically too late. My mind shut down to barely 'On' mode. I had tunnel-thought, and that was usually selfishly directed on me. My selfishness, my self-dependence, is what made my impossible recovery, no, my "time to cope," my "time to learn to live in a new kind of way," inch along.

Jemma could made it better. Not permanently, but when she was around, the fog cleared. And if words couldn't make it past my teeth it wasn't due to my shattered mind but my feelings for her. In a way she did make me worse. But in a good way.

I groan, lean back in my chair and use the three middle fingers from each hand to rub circles against my temples. I need a break. But a break is unacceptable. Not now. Not until Jemma hears the three words pass from my lips. Not until that, or until I die. Right now I am equally eager for both options.

I sit forward, hunch over the keyboard, stare at each individual key; I unconsciously start to choose a word starting with each letter that describes this whole thing. I've just started on the home row when I really realize what I'm doing. **A**. _Abject_.

 **S**. _S...sh...sh...whatever that word is_.

 **D**. _Desperate_.

 **F**. _Formidable_.

 **G**. I can't think of anything.

 **H**. _Hopeless_.

My brain catches at that last one.

Hopeless. Is this all hopeless? Are all of these sleepless weeks for nothing? The hours of staring at computer screens doing research on a rock, the risky ventures out into the world for more information on the rock, the near abandonment of most of the team; is it all worth it? Am I just filling in the minutes, the hours, the weeks, the months, in order to make no room for reality and grief?

Hopeless. Is it really? My eyes rake across the room, landing on Simmons' desk. No one, not even myself, has touched even a paperclip. Everything is as she left it. And...and will be so when she comes back. She's got to come back. If she doesn't...the world will forevermore be without Jemma Simmons.

Wait - a world without Jemma Simmons?! Impossible. It-the world-won't... _can't_ _possibly_ **_function_** without that one, hopeful life in it.

Hopeful. _Hopeless_. No. This isn't hopeless. It involves Jemma Simmons. Hopelessness and Jemma cannot exist together. I won't let allow that.

I drag my bleary eyes back to the computer screen before me. _Wait_...are there _two_ screens? Three? The images before my eyes swim together. I squint. Two computers. One smaller one off to the side. One larger one before me.

I wearily lift a hand and rest it atop the mouse. I began to scroll through more and more digital copies of ancient documents. I can barely translate five words per sentence. _I need sleep_. I would work better if I had sleep. But if I sleep it's going to take _more_ time getting Jemma back. So...it's better to work at 30% than at 100 in this case.

More information, whether it is useful or not I'll find out later, floods into my brain. I scroll down and read, scroll farther and read some more. I lean back, mentally pick up a growing stack of information on the Monolith and other portals and such, found on the bookshelf of my mind. I sift through it, and I ponder.


End file.
